Financial Business Consulting

Business Challenge of the Week – Find out what type of organization you are by the meetings you have

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AUGUST THEME: MEANINGFUL MEETINGS

The theme this month is how to have fewer bad meetings and more frequent meaningful meetings. I mentioned in last week’s challenge that meetings should be the last resort tactic for achieving goals. Unfortunately, it is usually the other way around and people call a meeting before they’ve thought through why they are having the meeting, or what they want to get out of it. Those who call the meeting think little about the interruption in workflow they are causing to those they want to attend.

“The Modern Meeting exists for only one reason: TO SUPPORT DECISIONS. Decisions have always been what moves us to act. They precede all change. They define our organization. Brave decisions lead to a brave organization; fearful decisions lead to a fearful one. So the opportunity is this: we must structure our Modern Meeting so that bold decisions happen often and quickly, and those decisions are converted into movement that leads our organization forward – FEARLESSLY.”

Your challenge this week is to evaluate your meetings and see which of the seven MODERN MEETING principles they support.

Does your meeting-

Support a decision that has already been made? Meaning you aren’t allowed to call a meeting to gather input and advice to make a preliminary decision. If you need input pre-decision, have a conversation with those you want input with personally.

Move fast and end on schedule?

Limit the number of attendees?

Reject the unprepared?

Produce committed action plan with accountabilities put in place?

Refuse to be informational? Reading memos and other pre-material is MANDATORY else refer to #4.

Work alongside your culture of brainstorming?

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you determine as a a result of this exercise that your meetings score a big fat 0 and include none of these principles. Don’t worry; just start noticing – next week we will cover these in more detail so you can make sure going forward that all of your meetings are Modern Meetings.